After spending over a decade with various Android phones, I finally made the switch to an iPhone. Here’s why I made the switch and what I’ve discovered since.
The Struggles with Samsung/Android
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Slow Shutter on Samsung Flagships: One of my biggest gripes with Samsung’s flagship phones has been the slow shutter and shutter lag. Trying to capture a moving subjects often resulted in blurry photos or missed shots entirely. This has been an issue with Samsung phones for many years.
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Google’s Service Abandonment: Google has a notorious history of abandoning services. The most recent one being the Podcasts app. The podcast experience on YouTube Music is just terrible.
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Hardware Design: The Samsung S24 Ultra has sharp corners that make it uncomfortable to hold. The Pixel 8 phones have issues with connectivity and overheating. The S24+ comes with an inferior Exynos processor.
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Performance: No matter how fast the hardware is, Android phones always seem to slow down and stutter after a few months of use. It’s like they age in dog years. (My most recent Samsung phone was the S23+, and it already started lagging).
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Apps: Android apps have an inconsistent look and feel. It’s like a patchwork quilt made by someone who doesn’t know how to sew. Also, a lot of Android apps require excessive permissions.
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Disaster: A Samsung update once made my phone unbootable. I had to do a full reset and lost some data. People said I should have made a backup before the update, but Android doesn’t provide an easy way to completely backup the phone. That was the last straw.
The iPhone Revelation
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Shortcuts: The Shortcuts app on iPhone is a game-changer. It automates tasks in ways I never thought possible.
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Face ID: Face ID on the iPhone is leagues ahead of Samsung’s version and even better than Touch ID. It’s fast, reliable, and just works. With the amount of unlocks I need everyday, this turns out to be more impactful than I expected.
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Files App: The Files app is actually useful, and it has built-in support for Windows file shares.
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Look & Feel: Everything on iOS feels smoother and more premium. The animations, the UI design – it’s all just so polished.
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Audio: It’s much easier to select audio output in-app when connected to multiple Bluetooth devices and AirPlay.
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Driving: CarPlay is a joy to use compared to Android Auto. Plus, Apple Maps has better voice directions.
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Emulators: Emulators are now possible to use on iPhone without jailbreaking.
Switching to iPhone has been a breath of fresh air. While Android gave me more freedom and customizations. The consistency, reliability, and overall experience of iOS have won me over.
What was your experience switching to/from “the dark side”?
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I got a 15 pro this year. This is my first apple phone.
I agree with your Android “struggle” list completely and would add that every single model I ever owned (especially the Google phones) had some unbelievable hardware issue that made using the phone a maddening experience. From calling that wouldn’t work at all to black screen on wakeup that wouldn’t go away, every time I bought a new phone it felt like the timer had begun on finding what new exciting awful hardware bug was going to present itself and whether Google would warranty replace it.
I agree with most of your iphone revelation comments. Face ID is miles better than anything I ever experienced on Android. Look and feel is definitely better. The audio switching is as easy as it gets. Carplay is… fine. I don’t like the work flow better and some of the decisions are weird when moving from app to app within apps, but I’m used to them now and don’t see them as often.
What I disagree about:
- Shortcuts is a shadow of what I could do with Tasker. It’s like eating baby food after having a Michelin rated meal. It’s fine. It’s not the end of the world and Shortcuts covers the use cases of most things, but man it was jarring to see what it couldn’t do when compared to Tasker.
- Apple Maps sucks and boy I’ve tried.
- Comparing emulation is crazy talk. There’s a billion emulators available on Android and Apple doesn’t have what Android had a decade ago.
What I like about apple that you didn’t mention:
- Integration of apple stuff: it all works out of the box as you’d expect. This wasn’t always the case with Android and having it all just work is pretty great.
- Apple stores are cool for getting stuff fixed quick. Kid broke their screen and we had it swapped in an hour. No calling around to see if my local shops had my Android phone screen in stock.
What I hate about apple that you didn’t mention:
- No custom launchers. I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT. I can’t believe people put up with this shit.
- Apple people and their obsession with text messaging using the Messages app. My god, texting has always sucked and apple people still use it.
- I miss Fdroid every single day. Sometimes I don’t need a super slick app with a subscription for some simple thing. I just need a little app that does a little thing.
- EVERY APP IS A SUBSCRIPTION FOR GOD’S SAKE EVERY SINGLE DAMN ONE
I don’t think they were comparing emulators between apple and android, just mentioning that emulators are better on it than they expected it to be.
Fair.
Apple Maps sucks and boy I’ve tried.
For me, Apple Maps is good in some aspects and not so good in some. I still use Google Maps for finding businesses etc. I think its quality is highly depending on the region.
Comparing emulation is crazy talk.
Not trying to compare with Android of course. Just pleasantly surprised that it is finally possible on iOS. My Samsung S23+ is still my main emulation console.
No custom launchers.
The only custom launcher I liked on Android is KISS Launcher. Now with iOS all I need to do is swipe down and I get the same functionality (and looking much better).
I miss Fdroid every single day.
True. For me this is the biggest pro for Android. That’s why I am still considering an Android tablet (can’t quite decide it yet).
I like Apple Maps at the moment because it is not currently packed with ads or suggestions.
I am fortunate enough to live in an area the directions are very accurate.
I use Apple maps for the same reason. I’ll go awhile without using Gmaps and then I’m shocked at how many ads and garbage are all over it. Just wringing the shit out of users with a tortured experience. I live in a big city and our rules for usage are Apple Maps for daily usage but if we’re traveling we use Google Maps. We learned that the hard way when Apple didn’t have a construction road closure that cost us over an hour of travel time. We pulled out Google Maps and it would have routed us around it.
I’ve been using Apple Maps every day for a decade and it’s been completely great. I wonder if it depends on where you live.
I’ve always been a crazy person about my launcher. I knew I was giving it up when I came to Apple but was still surprised at how little it can be customized. I really don’t like the swipe down, but that’s down to personal preference.
I agree with everything you said, for sure.
Hopefully the launcher customization in iOS 18 will make you feel a little better.
+1 for Tasker, it can do absolutely everything.
I’d like to add: Notifications are really bad on iOS.
You posted late to this thread but made the best point. I don’t even use Apple notifications because they’re so deeply shit. This is the issue that drives my wife crazy. When we talk about our new phones, the first thing she complains about is notifications.
I continue to be baffled that “anyone can grab your phone, point it at your face, and have access to everything” is somehow a feature and not a critical vulnerability. In the US, you can be compelled to unlock a device using biometrics, but not a password, under the 5th Amendment.
There’s a FaceID setting for “attention aware” that I think is on by default. It won’t unlock unless you are looking at the phone with eyes open.
That won’t help with police abuse of authority, but if you power down, restart, or lock the phone it will require your password. US police can’t legally require you give up your password, although courts have.
You can choose not to use FaceID, but it’s less convenient
It won’t open if you’re unconscious. You have to be actively looking at the phone.
If pulled over or something. Hit the power button of your iPhone a couple of times and FaceID is disabled. Easy as that. Or if you’re really paranoid: lock it before leaving the house.
You ever been pulled over? The cop makes it to your window in record time and I would not recommend fumbling around your center console to lock your face ID during said time.
Have you ever been pulled over? How fast are these cops running to your car window?
Enough times to never try this. Be safe out there!
Crazy. Every time I’ve been pulled over, I have time to dig out my I’d and registration before they get to my window. Maybe I shouldn’t but I don’t have patience to wait for them
Then say “Siri who am I”. It will lock it as well.
Exactly. You sit still,and wait for the cop to direct you, you don’t grab for shit unless they tell you to.
Sad when a secure and fast way to unlock your device is seen as a vulnerability, just because you live in a 3rd world country military state where you fear and are in odds with your governments law enforcement. For the rest of us, it’s secure and like others said, easy to turn off with a few button presses if the need arises.
Even if I wasn’t, it’s still a flawed form of authentication. Something you know > something you are/have. You don’t store your housekey halfway inserted into a lock.
So you do use an iPhone great! Because it’s the only phone OS not bypassable by your own government and FaceID is optional. Making their password unlock th most secure in the industry and being someone of high authentication security you must then use it right?
Ofc you don’t, you just shit on an optional featur bacuse you have other totally unrelated issues with the device or should I say company…
I, too, have abandoned Samsung.
Not going over to iPhone, though, screw that noise. The one time I tried it was on an iPad and yeah, no, screw most of that UX. Plus I’m not giving Apple money. I’m on an Android phone with a 3.5mm jack and a SD card slot, like nature intended.
I wish there were more choices other than Samsung. I don’t want any Chinese phones. Sony isn’t available in my region, and most other Japanese/Korean phone makers have given up the international market.
I’m not gonna force you to say if you don’t want to, but what is this region where the choice is just Samsung or Chinese phones? No Google Pixels? How about ASUS, or are you ahead of the curve in lumping Taiwan in with China? Nothing? That’s aggressively western. Fairphone? Motorola? Heard some positive things about their offering last year.
And to be clear, I think “I want an iPhone” is an absolutely valid stance. You don’t need an excuse to like a specific phone, it’s just the implication that you’d like to stay on Android but don’t have alternatives.
There are Pixel phones, but the current/last generations suck. Taiwanese phones are not available here, at least not with my mobile carrier.
Motorola is Chinese as well. I’ve never seen Fairphone and no idea who the makers are.
are you ahead of the curve in lumping Taiwan in with China?
Don’t worry, I am definitely not a tankie. Fuck the CCP.
I… guess Motorola is Lenovo now, which I think highlights the “not Chinese” thing as somewhat arbitrary, because… well, you get people on Lenovo laptops everywhere in government and enterprise, and nobody is out there boycotting that for political reasons.
I think as somebody else mentioned before, that restricting it to one carrier in one country is very arbitrary. There are perfectly good out of carrier options, and I presume that opens Sony back up (which is my personal choice) among others.
Again, if you just want an iPhone, just get an iPhone, but it increasingly seems like nobody is twisting your arm here. There is definitely plenty of choice available, and you’re taking quite a long walk to this “Samsung or bust” position.
Complete list of brands from my carrier:
And I have to stick with the carrier because of my workplace.
My dude, that’s your carrier only. Buy an unlocked phone from a different store, it’s not that hard.
Let’s assume I can choose any brand. Which brand would recommend?
No Google Pixels? How about ASUS, or are you ahead of the curve in lumping Taiwan in with China? Nothing? That’s aggressively western. Fairphone? Motorola? Heard some positive things about their offering last year.
That’s the entire point of Android. There are more. Pixel, Oneplus, Nothing to mention a few.
That’s complete nonsense, so many options out there. Samsung sucks I agree though.
Can you please give me some examples?
These look like all Samsung issues and not Android issues
1, 2, 4, and 5 are universal across Android OEMs and versions.
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Slow Shutter: Its instant on the Pixel, in fact the Pixel is known for its fast camera. The instant shuttet was a selling piece for the Nexus phones on ICS and the Pixel maintains this speed.
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Google’s Service Abandonment: This affects iPhones too, it’s a Google problem not an Android problem. The historical Google Services for Android remain to this day.
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Performance: Ive only experienced stutter on social apps, and I’ve seen the iPhone stutter on ReactNative apps as well.
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Android apps have an inconsistent look and feel: This is subjective. The only apps I see not on Material You are social apps that try to use their look, or are abandoned and using Holo. Abandoned iPhone apps also look out of place.
However on Samsung this is made worse by the fact that Samsing restyles applications. Some apps may still show Material You instead of OneUI theme.
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My experience mirrors yours.
The realization that for most apps, the iPhone version clearly has more effort put into it.
Seeing what an app ghetto the Play store is; they let anything on there and it’s scams galore.
Janky UI, as you said.
The final straw for me, though, was phone calls not ringing on the phone and going straight to VM. This was on a “pure” Google phone using Google Fi. When a phone can’t even act like a phone anymore, I’m out.
At my age, I don’t have time or desire to fiddle with shit constantly. I want it to Just Work.
for most apps, the iPhone version clearly has more effort put into it.
Even Google Maps work better on iOS!!
At my age, I don’t have time or desire to fiddle with shit constantly.
Yeah I used to install custom ROMS on my Android phones. Android has more customizations, but I would rather use a design that works well out of the box.
Even Google Maps work better on iOS!!
Really? I find that Android Google Maps is far better, at least through Android Auto. Showing current speed + speed limit icons while driving is a big one. Android Auto allows pinch zooming while Apple CarPlay Google Maps has 2000-era “zoom in and out buttons” only. I believe Android also shows tolls for alternate routes as well.
Google Maps on CarPlay shows current speed and speed limit too.
On my CarPlay implementation, Google Maps has a better layout, button size etc compared to the Android Auto one.
There are so many kinds of display configurations with car manufacturers, so I guess it is down to the implementation and personal preferences.
Oh, ok - my mistake then. I have tried both on two cars and thought that was normal.
I have a Pixel 8 and don’t have connectivity or overheating issues. I say this as it’s 38°C right now 🥵
The lack of being able to use extensions in Firefox on iOS is a deal breaker for me.
Is OP an Apple shill? Does OP know that Samsung is not Android and viceversa?
I switched to an iPhone after having many similar hangups with Android devices over the years. Biggest for me was how little update/software support Android phones got. I think they’re better these days (or so I hope) but they had awful support for years. Buying a brand new Android phone and only getting 1 OS update and 2 years of security updates was not uncommon and I have several old Android phones in a drawer that succumbed to that fate.
My experiences with iOS have largely been positive but I do have some issues which annoy me constantly:
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Apple’s ecosystem is great and is so polished and tightly integrated, but trying to do anything outside of that ecosystem is incredibly painful. You are actively punished when trying to do anything outside Apple’s box. Even something as simple as transferring music files from your PC to your phone is frustrating at best and impossible at worst.
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Every. Goddamn. App. is a subscription. The app store is almost completely useless and I practically never use it. I’m not joking when I say that the vast majority of downloadable apps are subscription-based, and usually a WEEKLY subscription instead of monthly. Sorry, but I’m not paying $5/week for a goddamn calculator or weather app. This means that using an iPhone can be very frustrating if the stock apps don’t suit your needs. This reason alone is enough to make me want to jump ship again sometimes.
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iCloud sucks. No other way to word this, really. It’s a relic of bygone times and Apple really needs to overhaul it and make it more useful in the modern day. Everything from the clunky, Fisherprice UI to the base storage which barely has enough gigabytes to hold a single fart. On one hand upgraded storage is only a few bucks a month. On the other hand I’m goddamn tired of subscriptions.
and usually a WEEKLY subscription instead of monthly.
I never encountered weekly subscriptions on apps I am interested in. But I have to agree that the App Store is shit. The apps on my phone I mostly found somewhere else like Mastodon or blogs. Our I just use built-in apps from Apple.
- iCloud sucks
So you’re only complaint here is that it isn’t free and you don’t care for the UI. That sounds more like a personal preference and that you don’t wanna pay for it. Not that iCloud actually sucks.
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I dont know what was your problem with slowdowns. I’ve been rocking s8plus and now s22ultra and the only times when either were restarted was an update. I can agree with your point about design but its basically a different approach to development as with iphone you must use certain elements whereas with android you can do what you want.
As someone who did the same as OP in around 2018 I came back when the pixel 6 pro came out. OP says Shortcuts, I say tasker. OP says “Samsung/android” I say Samsung is not “android”. Yes it builds on it but iPhone is a single phone made by a single manufacturer. So is Samsung. Samsung doesn’t make LGs phones. Some comparisons are quite weak. I also ran into older looking apps when I used it in 2018.
Just use what you like, I like my phone to do what I want it to. Nextcloud photo sync worked like shit. Keepass app was not great. Tasker is amazing. Ssh clients were shit compared to Android. iPhone felt too much like it was telling me how to use my phone. I know I’m probably considered more of a “power user” than most.
No idea why Samsung is seen as the best manufacturer of Android phones. Bloated crap.
file manager ruins any apple experience
I thought I would be bothered by it. But now that iOS Files app has integration with iCloud and Windows shares, I don’t really miss the Android file management too much.
It does take an extra step to “import” files into certain apps, but at the same time I like this better than Android spyware apps accessing nearly everything in the Android file system.
I don’t think people should be downvoting you for your own personal lived experience and opinions but people be tribal about which tech company they like their black mirrors from.
I had the same switch as you, diehard android fan for several years but eventually switch to iPhone because the user experience is consistent. I don’t want to be on my phone a lot so I appreciate how smooth everything is on IPhone. I pull it out, do what I need to do, then put it away.
Yeah I’m not even an Android hater. I am still considering buying an Android tablet. I wish people who disagree would just voice out their opinion for discussion, instead of just downvoting.
File app has Nextcloud integration , too
It does? Might have to try that.
Having moved to iPhone fairly recently I do like the overall experience, however Face ID is by far the biggest downside over a good under screen fingerprint scanner.
When picking up the phone and holding it in front of my face it works perfectly well, but that’s probably less than 50% of the unlocks I do.
Most of the time the phone would lie flat on a desk, on a nightstand, couch armrest etc. I can see and interact with the screen just fine, but the phone can’t see me properly. Making me pick the phone to quickly check a notification.
I’m probably entering my password about 4-5x as much as my old phone because of that
@Inktvip @cloudless I moved to iPhone too recently and generally really like it particularly the camera but find it a bit harsh when, after a short night or when feeling rough in the morning, faceID declines to recognise me and I have to type in the pin. It’s oil on the fire for me…
You just made me realize that I haven’t used the fingerprint ID on Android for a long time. I had to use a 6-digit PIN because of the requirements of using a work profile.
But even when I could use fingerprint, I thought it was slow (Samsung S10 and S23). I ended up using either PIN or pattern.
iPhone face ID is extremely fast, but in your use cases I can understand the frustrations.
For me add the fact that the AirTag network is vastly larger and more mature than Tile or another other service. And Apple Pay works better* and I was sold
* anecdotal personal experience, ymmv
That has changed with Google’s “Find my device” network since android has a worldwide market share of over 70%.
Can’t say the android phones I’ve used have slowed down over the years ( mainly one plus ). I always stayed away from Samsung and the sort because they add too much bloat.
Not to mention that an update changed the power button to “activate bixby” and the constant harassing OD the Samsung app.
I bought the latest Samsung tablet and its underwhelming compared to the precious Samsung tablet I had. At this point I wish I had bought an iPad instead :/
My experience switching to iPhone 4 years ago after only android is texting is incredibly more annoying due to terrible autocorrect and prediction on iphone
